With the development of a global economy, business persons who regularly travel to other countries are a fast growing breed. To meet their needs, satellite-based global telecommunications networks are being developed. The first such network was commercially activated by Iridium LLC on Nov. 1, 1998. These networks provide international cellular/satellite phone and paging services. Such networks inevitably involve numerous entities in many different countries which work together as part of the network. Such entities involve governments, service providers, industry clearinghouses, and others from around the world. Each call made through the network often involve numerous entities and often cross national sovereignty lines.
As calls cross sovereignty lines, they often also pass from a jurisdiction using one communications protocol into another jurisdiction using a different communications protocol. This presents a problem when a subscriber is to be barred or deregistered from further access to the network due to unpaid bills, lost phones, etc. A message is sent through the network to deregister the subscriber. However, this message may be lost due to congestion or message routing problems. If this happens, then the subscriber is never deregistered and the subscriber can continue to use the network.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a method of ensuring proper deregistration of a network subscriber for cross-protocol calls in a global telecommunications network. The present invention addresses such a need.